Thanks to Twitter, Donald Trump Will Soon Be the Cyberbully-In-Chief

When Donald Trump was just another candidate among the herd of Republican hopefuls aiming for the White House, his use of Twitter as a “bully pulpit” to denigrate his opponents often seemed entertaining. But more recently, we’ve had a glimpse of what it might be like to have a president who uses it that way—and it’s not a pretty picture.

In the midst of his negotiations with Carrier, the air-conditioning manufacturer, about trying to keep some jobs in Indiana, Trump publicly called out the head of the company’s union for being incompetent and said his behavior was one reason why companies leave the U.S.

Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!

If Trump were just a billionaire real estate developer, that kind of attitude might be excusable. But from the president-elect of the United States? A man who will soon have a huge amount of power over Congress, not to mention the Supreme Court?

“When you attack a man for living an ordinary life in an ordinary job, it is bullying,” Nicolle Wallace, communications director for George Bush and a top Republican strategist, told the New York Times. “This is a strategy to bully somebody who dissents. That’s what is dark and disturbing.”

Trump giving a whole new meaning to "Bully Pulpit". Hey @twitter,Chuck jones is receiving death threats. That "harmful" enough for you?

Chuck Jones isn’t the only one who has been on the receiving end of Trump’s tweeted insults, and the Carrier deal is far from the only case where the president-elect has tried to use Twitter as a platform to get his way. He did something similar with Boeing, by criticizing the huge sums he said were involved in a Boeing contract for a new Air Force One jet.

The numbers cited by Trump were incorrect, but the message was clear: He wasn’t going to stand for the deal, but instead was essentially trying to renegotiate it through Twitter. Boeing’s CEO made some critical comments about Trump’s attitude towards China, comments that were reported just minutes before Trump posted his tweet. A coincidence? Or retribution?

Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!

Many people undoubtedly dismiss Trump’s tweets as just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But they can have real effects—and not just on things like Boeing’s share price BA, which dropped after Trump made his comments about the over-priced contract.

For example, the Washington Post spoke with Lauren Batchelder, a 19-year-old woman who asked a question at a Trump rally during the campaign, and was the subject of abuse and harassment for months afterwards, to the point where the Post interview is the first time she has spoken about it.

The arrogant young woman who questioned me in such a nasty fashion at No Labels yesterday was a Jeb staffer! HOW CAN HE BEAT RUSSIA & CHINA?

Trump and his supporters latched onto the fact that Batchelder was working for Republican candidate Jeb Bush at the time she went to the Trump rally (she later quit the campaign and voted for Hillary Clinton), and argued that she was a plant. But she says she was not there as a party worker, and her harassment has been real.

The incident with Batchelder may have taken place during the heat of the campaign, but Trump’s behavior has not changed much since. If anything, it has become even more aggressive.

Facebook’s fake news problem is worse than it looks:

At one point, when discussing the topic of voter fraud, Trump retweeted a teenaged boy’s account in order to repeatedly bully a CNN reporter for not doing her job. This is just one example of the kind of hostility towards the media that journalists could be subjected to under President Trump, an attitude that he encouraged among his supporters during the campaign.

Trump on Twitter is the ultimate bully pulpit. Disappoined to see an important tool for freedom of speech to be used by PEOTUS to menace.

The larger risks of a U.S. president who tweets his thoughts and emotions are potentially fairly significant. There has already been something approaching an international incident based on one of his tweets, when Trump appeared to be giving Taiwan more recognition than foreign-policy analysts would recommend, which irritated the Chinese government.

But even apart from the foreign-policy implications, the idea of a president who uses Twitter to single out individuals like Chuck Jones or Lauren Batchelder or a CNN reporter, and subject them to potentially public humiliation and harassment by some of his supporters—including death threats—is disturbing.

Trolling on Twitter is already a significant problem, but what happens when the president is the one who is doing the trolling? Some have called for Twitter to remove Trump’s account because of his behavior, but if anything, that risks giving his supporters even more ammunition to claim he is being unfairly treated by the left.

It’s possible that Trump’s handlers will find some way to prevent him from continuing to behave the way he has on Twitter once he becomes president. That appears to be the only way that the country will get rid of its cyberbully-in-chief.

Donald Trump Now Says the U.S.-China Relationship Must Improve

President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States needed to improve its relationship with China, which he criticized for its economic policies and failure to rein in North Korea.

“One of the most important relationships we must improve, and we have to improve, is our relationship with China,” Trump told a rally in Iowa. The United States and China are the world’s two biggest economies.

“China is not a market economy,” he said. “They haven’t played by the rules, and I know it’s time that they’re going to start.”

It was the first such top-level contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter adopted a “one-China” policy in 1979, recognizing only the Beijing government.

Trump kept up his criticism of Beijing during the rally, which was part of a “thank you tour” to express gratitude to states that helped him win an upset victory over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last month.

“You have the massive theft of intellectual property, putting unfair taxes on our companies, not helping with the menace of North Korea like they should, and the at-will and massive devaluation of their currency and product dumping,” Trump said of China. “Other than that, they’ve been wonderful, right?”

China is not currently viewed as a currency manipulator by either the U.S. Treasury Department or the International Monetary Fund. The World Trade Organization says Chinese tariffs on imported goods are generally higher than U.S. tariffs.

“I have so many friends there,” Trump said Branstad would tell him. Branstad has said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a 30-year friendship. The Iowa governor has visited China at least six times, and Xi has been to Iowa twice.

Trump repeated his campaign message that he planned to prioritize the United States and American workers over global interests.

The Trump administration, which takes office on Jan. 20, would focus on two rules: “Buy American and hire American,” he said, adding he would keep pressuring companies not to move jobs overseas.

China Is Angry With the Obama Administration for Blocking This Merger

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) criticized the United States on Friday for thwarting a Chinese investment fund’s proposed acquisition of German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron.

Aixtron aixxf announced on Thursday that China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund had dropped its 670 million euro ($710.60 million) takeover offer to buy the company, after the United States blocked the deal on security grounds.

“The U.S., in the name of national security, frequently departs from market and commercial principles to interfere with normal business activity,” said MOFCOM spokesman Shen Danyang.

Shen was answering a question on the Aixtron deal at a regular MOFCOM briefing.

The deal fully conformed “with international business practices and market principles and shouldn’t have been subjected to political interference,” Shen said.

The Aixtron deal had been in trouble for some time.

The German government withdrew its approval for the deal in October, reportedly at the bidding of the United States .

Conflicting reports of an impending move by Asia’s Las Vegas to halve the daily withdrawal limit using China’s dominant bank card network on the territory’s cash machines have sent stocks of casino operators on a nosedive.

The rumored move by Macanese financial regulators, with mainland Chinese backing, was first revealed by the South China Morning Post as part of China’s bid to stem chronic capital outflows from the country. It comes on the heels of revelations that up to $1.25 billion had been transferred out of the Chinese economy via the enclave’s ATMs in a single month, the Post says. According to Reuters, China’s foreign reserves in October dwindled to $3.1 trillion, the lowest since March 2011.

The new ATM restrictions would mean that customers withdrawing cash in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory via the China UnionPay network will only be allowed to get up to 5,000 patacas ($626) of cash daily, effective from this coming Saturday local time. Previously, UnionPay users were allowed to withdraw 10,000 patacas ($1,251) each day.

According to the Post, people have been “turning up at ATM machines with stacks of cards from individual account holders” to max out the 10,000-pataca limit on behalf of scores of people at a time.

However, UnionPay vigorously disputed the reported tightening Friday, telling Reuters that the existing caps on daily and annual overseas withdrawal using UnionPay cards issued in mainland China would remain unchanged.

Bloomberg reports that, regardless of the whether withdrawal limits would be halved or not, stocks price of companies with casino operations in Macau dropped like a rock in stock exchanges worldwide upon the suggestion of the new measure. “This would be the first capital control measure that directly targets Macau,” JPMorgan Chase analyst DS Kim wrote in a note, according to Bloomberg.

Shares of Wynn Macau wynmf, Sands Chinaschyf and Galaxy Entertainment gxyey — all major players in China’s only legal casino haven — all lost over one tenth of their values during Friday trading in Hong Kong, while Crown Resort stocks, listed on the Sydney bourse, fell by 8%.

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New York-traded stocks were affected by the news as well: Wynn Resorts wynn and Las Vegas Sandslvs saw their stock prices plunge by 12% and 13% respectively in Thursday’s trading.

China’s Credit Binge Has Driven Its Banks to Hide $2 Trillion in Loans

China’s banks are masking loans as investments through an accounting trick to the tune of $2 trillion, or about 20% of their existing loan portfolio, according to a Wall Street Journaltally.

With China’s latest economic growth recently being driven by unprecedented levels of debt, that debt is gaining increased attention. Two years ago the focus turned to shadow banking, the non-bank financing that included runaway wealth management products and trust loans. Now it is shadow banking of another kind.

Off-balance sheet vehicles and a hodge-podge of bank and non-bank lending are behind the current rise. It is this “plumbing” that makes China risky for a crisis if liquidity dries up following a property slowdown or other triggering event, according to Emerging Advisors Group.

The two trillion dollars worth in lending, miscounted as investments, is a symptom of the plumbing problem. The investment categorization means the banks aren’t holding capital against potential losses. Many of the loans are made to property developers. If China’s rising property market stalls or reverses, those loans could quickly overwhelm their lenders. It would then be up to the government to decide whether to bail them out. A similar contagion afflicted Western banks during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

But lending by any means necessary is a directive coming from the highest levels in China. President Xi Jinping said last year the country must at least post 6.5% annual economic growth through 2020. And China’s state-owned banks have received government directives over the past year to support economic growth by issuing credit.

That means state bankers, whose standing in the Communist Party is equal to that of city or provincial leaders, are rewarded for lending to struggling business, despite the risks. In the 12 months through June, China’s domestic debt ratio rose by an astonishing 28% of GDP.

That’s faster than during the 2008-2009 stimulus when it pumped $600 billion into the system. And that means more examples of the credit excesses in China will be coming in the near future.

Until then, China’s official total debt level of 250% of GDP won’t ever tell the full story.

Michael Jordan Is Keeping the Rights to His Chinese Name

China’s highest court ruled in favor of basketball legend Michael Jordan Thursday over the rights to his last name written in Chinese characters, winding down a four-year trademark battle with a local sportswear company.

The Supreme People’s Court ruled that Jordan’s Chinese name, Qiaodan—pronounced “Chee-ow-dahn”—is “well-recognized,” in the country, Bloomberg reports, and that a company called Qiaodan Sports Co. must relinquish its trademark.

The family-owned business based in China’s southeast Fujian province registered the trademark over a decade ago, and was first sued by Jordan in 2012, according to Bloomberg. Initial attempts to settle the matter had reportedly been struck down by lower courts.

“I am happy that the Supreme People’s Court has recognized the right to protect my name through its ruling in the trademark cases,” Jordan said in an emailed statement cited by Bloomberg. “Chinese consumers deserve to know that Qiaodan Sports and its products have no connection to me.”

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The company operates some 6,000 stores that sell shoes and sportswear across the country, Bloomberg said. Its trademark for the Chinese characters will have to be returned to the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce, then to be re-awarded to Jordan. The rights to the Romanized version, Qiaodan, will not belong to Jordan, however.

In China, You Can Now Text Your Friend a Pumpkin Spice Latte

Users of WeChat in China will soon be able to buy each other cappuccinos, frappuccinos and pumpkin spice lattes after the messaging app’s owner Tencent tcehy struck a deal with Starbuckssbux.

With the planned feature, WeChat users will be able to buy each other Starbucks-branded drinks and gifts and send them over the app along with personalized messages. The two companies will also expand the reach of WeChat Pay, a digital payment method, to around 2,500 Starbucks outlets across the country.

The partnership, announced Wednesday, will give Starbucks access to hundreds of millions of users of the communication service, according to a statement issued by the coffee giant.

WeChat reportedly had 846 million monthly active users as of the third quarter of 2016. And those numbers are likely to climb by the time the partnership kicks off in early 2017.

The growth of Starbucks digital footprint comes as the coffee-maker undergoes an aggressive bricks and mortar expansion in China, the world’s second largest consumer market. Starbucks plans to more than double its Chinese store count by 2021.

For more on Starbucks and tech, watch Fortune’s video:

Announcing the deal Belinda Wong — who was made CEO of Starbucks China in October — said, “Just as Starbucks cards are among the most gifted around the globe, we aspire to also become the most gifted brand digitally in China.”

Exclusive: China Stole Data From Major U.S. Law Firms

A series of security breaches that stuck prestigious law firms last year was more pervasive than reported and was carried out by people with ties to the Chinese government, according to evidence seen by Fortune.

The incidents involved hackers getting into the email accounts of partners at well-known firms, and then relaying messages and other data from the partners’ in-boxes to outside servers.

In the case of one firm, the attacks took place over a 94 day period starting in March of 2015, and resulted in the hackers stealing around seven gigabytes of data, according to information obtained by Fortune. That figure would typically amount to tens or hundreds of thousands of emails.

The information also revealed the thefts took place in one hour increments, and that the hackers returned repeatedly in search of new information.

News of the law firm breaches surfaced earlier this year when the Wall Street Journalreported that hackers had penetrated the computer networks of Cravath Swaine & Moore, Weil Gotshal & Manges and other unidentified firms. The clients of these firms include many of the world’s biggest companies, and they are privy to sensitive corporate information. Cravath, for instance, is representing Time Warnertwx in its merger plans with AT&Tt.

The Wall Street Journal’s account suggested the goal of the hackers was to obtain information to facilitate insider trading. Cravath at the time responded that it was not aware that any of the exposed information had been used improperly, while Weil declined comment.

The earlier news of the law firm breaches did not say who conducted the hacking, but Fortune has obtained reliable information that indicates the breach took place as part of a larger initiative by the Chinese government. This initiative also saw the hackers target big U.S. companies, including a major airline. The 2015 attack reflected familiar patterns of hacking employed by individuals with connections to the Chinese government, according to the information obtained by Fortune.

The evidence obtained by Fortune did not disclose a clear motive for the attack but did show the names of law firm partners targeted by the hackers. The practice areas of those partners include mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property, suggesting the goal of the email theft may indeed have been economic in nature.

Multiple sources in law enforcement and at the law firms declined to go on record for this story, but confirmed the role of China in the email hacking campaign. The sources did not wish to speak publicly in part because the events are the subject of a confidential investigation.

The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York launched the investigation earlier this year, and it is active and ongoing. A spokesperson for the office declined to comment.

An Uncomfortable Issue for Firms

The theft of the partner emails is a serious matter for law firms, which handle a wide variety of sensitive business issues and enjoy a reputation for confidentiality and discretion.

The targets were numerous. In addition to the ones named by the Journal, evidence also shows the hackers tried to target other prominent law firms, including Cleary Gottlieb; Mayer Brown;Latham & Watkins; Covington & Burling; Davis Polk & Wardell. The hacking attempts did not always succeed as some firms rebuffed the attacks or prevented the attackers from removing any data.

The firms chose not to comment in part because cyber-security is a sensitive matter and, like other organizations, they do not want to draw attention to themselves—regardless if a breach has occurred or not.

In the case of successful attacks, firms had deployed firewalls and other technical measures to guard their networks, but they failed to detect the email-driven attack. Such attacks, known as “spear-phishing,” target victims with personalized emails. It was this tactic that allowed hackers to penetrate the email accounts of former DNC chair John Podesta and former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, as well as numerous celebrities. Last month, the Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson described phishing as the top hacking threat facing the country.

The timing of the breaches is also notable. They occurred in 2015 at a time when hacking by the Chinese government became a major irritant in Sino-American relations. In September of that year, President Obama delivered a blunt warning to China on the eve of a state visit to Washington by President Xi Jinping, calling such attacks “an act of aggression.”

Shortly after news of the breaches at Cravath and Weil, a threat analysis firm warned that a Russian hacker known as Oleras was recruiting a gang of cyber criminals online in order to target law firms for economic data that could be traded upon. Oleras, however, does not appear to have been involved in the law firm hacking that took place in 2015.

Meanwhile, there have been fresh attempts to compromise law firms with new forms of phishing attacks. Last week, for instance, New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman warned of a scam that involved sending emails to lawyers purporting to be from his office.

Xi was visiting the U.K. for a four-day state visit when Cameron took him to the Plough at Cadsden pub in Buckinghamshire, in southeast England. There the pair enjoyed traditional British food and drink and exchanged stories, including one about Cameron accidentally leaving his eight-year-old daughter behind in the pub in 2012, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported at the time.

The pub subsequently became a hotspot for Chinese tourists, according to the Morning Advertiser, a weekly trade publication focused on the pub industry. On the Plough at Cadsden’s website, it is described as “the pub of choice of Prime Ministers for many decades” and “probably the most famous pub in England.”

I dropped into The Plough at Cadsden for a pint of IPA and some fish and chips with China's President Xi. pic.twitter.com/6kiY27UBwE

Now the Plough has reportedly been sold to the Chinese group SinoFortone Investment in a sale brokered by specialist property advisor Christie & Co teams based in London and Asia. Terms of the deal, including the value of the purchase, have not been disclosed, but it is believed that the previous owner will continue to run the pub.

“We are really pleased to have completed the sale of the Plough to SinoFortone Investment,” Christie & Co director Neil Morgan said, according to the Morning Advertiser. “The Chinese market has huge potential and many opportunities, so it is one we will see more activity in over the coming months and years.”

China’s Love-Hate Affair With Innovation

I’m in Beijing today, hosting a dinner honoring CEOs of Chinese companies on the Fortune Global 500list. There are more than 100 of them – a head- spinning increase from the turn of the century, when there were only 10. Meanwhile, the number of U.S. firms on the Global 500 list has dropped to 128, from 179 in 2000.

But here’s the thing: most of the Chinese companies, including the top 12, are state-owned enterprises – companies like State Grid (#2), China National Petroleum (#3) and Sinopec (#4). They owe their size to monopoly positions in China’s massive market, and easy access to government credit. Their position says little about China’s ability to compete in the outside world. Indeed, those very factors often make it difficult for them to expand abroad: witness Australia’s reluctance to let State Grid buy sensitive network assets recently.

Tonight’s dinner is part of the run up to next year’s Fortune Global Forum, which will be held in Guangzhou in December. Earlier today, Guangzhou Vice Mayor Cai Chaolin and I hosted a dialogue with a number of Chinese business leaders focusing on the importance of openness and innovation in business. There was universal agreement that, more than ever before, successful global companies need to be open to outside influences, in a mode of continuous experimentation, and willing to tolerate errors and mistakes.

China’s state-owned enterprises, however, are better known for the opposite: cloistered thinking, massive bureaucracy, and risk aversion. “This is a challenge for state-owned businesses,” acknowledged Zhang Zhaoxing, president of state-owned Yuexiu realty and finance group in Guangzhou. “I hope the government will promote more open policies for state-owned enterprises so we can pursue innovation.”

To be sure, China has its impressive innovators – private companies like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Huawei come to mind. And the Chinese government’s focused determination to create a culture of innovation is an impressive thing to behold. Cai Jian of Peking University told how his school has transformed itself in the last few years from an exam-driven culture to one where teachers have become coaches, classes have become workshops, and students compete to innovate.

Still, it’s difficult to imagine China taking the lead in global innovation as long as its biggest companies are in the government’s grip.